


Paint Nite

by alessandralee



Category: Stitchers (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 17:32:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4634052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandralee/pseuds/alessandralee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a lingering awkwardness after Cameron wakes up from his coma, and he attempts to fix it by dragging Kirsten to paint nite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paint Nite

“Just so we’re clear,” Kirsten cays as she shuts the door to Cameron’s convertible, “this is the last time you can use ‘but I died for you’ to talk me into things.”

Cameron laughs, “Are you sure? Because I think that stopping my heart and spending 48 hours in a coma entitles me to a lot.”

“Agreed,” she tells him, “but I think Paint Nite is torture enough for me to call us even.” Cameron thinks she might actually be joking.

The jokes have been few and far between since he woke up.

“What,” he exclaims as he holds the door to the old theater open for her. “Camille says it’s fun.”

“Camille also has terrible taste.”

Cameron can’t actually tell if that was a joke, too. He’s hoping it was.

Things between the two of them have been a kind of awkward since he got out of the coma. This is his latest attempt at fixing things.

Group board game night hadn’t worked. Neither had the horror movie marathon at Casa Cameron.

His final attempt had been an out and out confrontation on the car ride into work one morning, but that had just amounted to Kirsten telling him that she didn’t appreciate his forcing her hand like that, followed by twenty minutes of silent treatment.

Things had actually gotten worse after that.

While he didn’t think that she was lying about anything, it still felt to him like there was something else at play, something more than her just not liking that he took matters into his own hands.

But Kirsten wouldn’t spill the beans, so he’d returned to his first plan of reminding her what a joy he was to be around. That seemed like the best way to patch up their friendship.

Tonight that involved trying to paint a forest at sunset, plenty of wine, and tapas.

Only ‘tapas’ turned out to be popcorn, cheese fires, and all the other concessions a lightly decaying local theater had to offer.

At least the wine was as promised, and served it cute miniature bottles to boot.

Unfortunately for Cameron, the humor of the drive over had all but disappeared. Kirsten spent the fifteen minutes between tying on her smock and the class actually starting by paying more attention to her wine than to him.

It sucked.

Once they actually started painting, though, the perfectionist in him was distracted enough to be content with Kirsten’s relative silence. That didn’t stop him from watching her out of the corner of his eye as he decided exactly where is purple should fade to pink.

Surprisingly, even when it came to art he was the first kid to finish. Not even his perfectionism kept him from that. Of course, perfectionism was relative; he wasn’t much of an artist. Still, it was better than he’d expected of himself.

Kirsten was still fiddling with her own painting, apparently even more of a perfectionist than Cameron.

“Looking good, Monet,” he turns in his chair to face her.

She’d completely ignored their instructions to paint a sunset that faded from blue to purple to pink in favor of electric yellow to green. It looked like some kind of nuclear nightmare, and if Cameron wasn’t so wrapped up in his concerns about the distance between the two of them, that might have worried him.

“Thanks,” she replies. “Yours is pretty good, too.” He’d be more flattered if she’d actually looked away from her own painting before complimenting his. “I’m all out of yellow, can I borrow some of yours?”

With a frustrated sigh, Cameron pushes his cardboard palette towards her. He’d only touched his yellow to create a little orange for the bottom of his own painting.

This was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be like old times. It was supposed to help fix things.

It certainly wasn’t supposed to be more uncomfortable than the first date going down at the opposite end of their table. And that guy had spilled a drink in his date’s lap.

Maybe he should have taken Camille up on her offer to join them. Kirsten seemed more comfortable when she had Camille to act as a buffer.

But whatever, he’d have to make due without her. And desperate times call for desperate measures.

Cameron grabbed his still unused details brush off the table and dipped it into the black paint. With the aid of his phone’s camera, he draws a curl mustache across his upper lip.

He thinks he looks like one of those old time villains who tied damsels to train tracks. Having a top hat would make it funnier, but he’s out of luck there.

“So what do you think?” he asks Kirsten in his best Boris and Natasha accent.

That at least gets her attention. And, surprisingly, it gets him a laugh.

“So attractive,” Kirsten deadpans. “You should grow a real one.”

“I might have to,” he tells her. “Do you think Maggie will take me more seriously as a scientist with a mustache?”

“I don’t think anyone will take you seriously with a mustache.”

Now it’s Cameron’s turn to laugh, “That’s good. I’m not even sure I could grow one.”

He tried to grow a beard last November. It took a week for anyone to notice and Linus actually threatened to shave it off while he was sleeping.

For a moment, Kirsten doesn’t say anything; she just looks at him with an unreadable expression. Cameron’s certain that means she’s about to shut him out again.

“Look,” she begins, “I know things have been… weird these last couple of weeks. I know I’ve been weird.” Cameron nods, unsure of what’s coming next. “I’m just figuring some stuff out.”

“About Liam?” he asks.

His mind just goes there automatically.

“No,” she says, “not about Liam.”

“Then what?”

“I’m not ready to talk about it,” Kirsten explains. “But we’ll get through it.”

“Okay,” Cameron replies, after he’s sure she’s not going to say anything more.

It’s not a return to normal. It’s not even an admission of what exactly has her acting so strange. But it’s a start. And he’ll take it.

Kirsten fishes around in her bag for a minute, then pulls out a travel pack of tissues.

“Go clean up,” she instructs him. “ I can’t be seen with you like that. I’ll buy us some cheese fries while out backgrounds dry.”

Cameron accepts the tissues and walks to the bathroom. All in all, it’s not a bad thing to be placated with food. He never thought he’d feel hopeful about cheese fries.


End file.
